Your sales team just lost control of the buyer journey. Not to a competitor. Not to budget cuts. To AI.
In our latest study of 250 tech executives, we uncovered something most revenue leaders aren’t ready to hear: 45% of B2B buyers now use AI to find software before they ever talk to a human. But here’s where it gets uncomfortable—while sales teams scramble to adapt, marketing departments are seizing unprecedented control over revenue strategy.
Download the full AI and The New Guard of B2B Sales research report
The Numbers That Should Keep You Awake
45% of buyers use AI to find software
46% of those buyers receive misleading information
49% say marketing now owns more of the buyer relationship
36% believe AI has made sales teams less valuable
94% of companies restructured due to AI in the past year
This isn’t a trend. It’s a complete restructuring of B2B revenue organizations.
The Paradox: More Confident, Less Accurate
Here’s what’s keeping sales teams up at night: AI is creating buyers who arrive at conversations with more confidence but less accuracy than ever before.
While 48% say AI-informed buyers are more willing to buy, an equal 45% report these buyers are making faster, less-informed decisions. Prospects show up armed with AI-generated “knowledge” about your product—except the knowledge is often wrong.
The result? Your reps aren’t selling anymore. They’re correcting AI-generated misconceptions before they can even demonstrate value.
Sales Is Now Playing Defense (And Losing)
The shift from educator to corrector is fundamentally changing how sales teams spend their time:
- 36% spend more time assessing prospects’ existing knowledge
- 35% dedicate resources to correct AI’s descriptions of their company
- 30% face more pressure to correct misleading buyer information
- 22% say deals now take longer to close
Your modern sales process looks like this:
- Assess – “What do they think they know?”
- Correct – “Where did AI get it wrong?”
- Validate – “Here’s proof beyond the AI summary”
- Close – Only after rebuilding the foundation
The “educate and close” model is dead.
Marketing’s Power Grab (And Why It’s Working)
While sales struggles with AI-informed buyers, marketing is experiencing a renaissance:
- 49% say AI enables marketing to own more of the buyer relationship
- 47% say marketing now influences revenue strategy
- 51% report AI is creating more marketing roles
- 38% say AI is decreasing entry-level sales hiring
Why is marketing winning? Simple. AI lives where marketing creates content, not where sales has conversations.
When buyers use AI to research software, they interact with website copy, case studies, blog posts, and product comparisons—all marketing’s domain. Sales doesn’t engage until buyers have already formed opinions, shortlisted vendors, and developed expectations.
Marketing shapes the narrative before sales gets a chance.
According to Gartner research, by 2030, 80% of sales leaders will consider AI integration critical for competitive advantage. But our data suggests the winners are the teams positioning themselves now by investing in marketing’s ability to control the AI-mediated buyer journey.
The Friction Nobody Talks About
As marketing gains ground, internal tension is exploding:
- 38% say AI is increasing sales-marketing tension
- 21% say the relationship is becoming competitive
- Only 13% report strong alignment between functions
94% of companies restructured in the past year, including 28% who restructured leadership so marketing could assume greater revenue ownership.
The traditional handoff model is broken.
The Sales Identity Crisis
Perhaps our starkest finding: Only 21% believe sales will regain control of the buyer relationship.
When nearly 80% of executives don’t believe sales will reclaim its traditional role, it signals a fundamental identity crisis:
- 36% say AI has made sales teams less valuable
- 38% say AI is damaging sales reps’ credibility
- 38% say AI makes sales quotas more unrealistic
If sales doesn’t control the buyer relationship or own the early journey, what is the sales function for?
The Leadership Pipeline Is Shifting
The organizational implications run deep:
- 46% say AI is creating sales leadership opportunities for marketing executives
- 23% believe future CROs will come from marketing
The CMO-to-CRO pipeline is opening. For decades, the path to Chief Revenue Officer ran through sales. Not anymore.
What Winners Are Doing Right Now
The data reveals three strategic imperatives separating winners from everyone else:
1. Build Misinformation Correction Strategies
Teams need playbooks to counteract AI-generated misinformation. Discovery frameworks must uncover what AI told prospects, then systematically correct misconceptions before validation. Learn how AI-powered demo personalization helps teams navigate this challenge.
2. Restructure Sales-Marketing Ownership
Organizations must rethink ownership boundaries. The traditional handoff model fails when buyers form opinions before sales engages. Define clear accountability for the AI-influenced top of funnel versus the human-driven close.
3. Invest in What AI Can’t Replicate
Static demos won’t cut through AI-generated noise. Buyers need to experience differentiation, not just hear about it. Interactive demos prove value in ways AI summaries simply can’t, they’re the differentiator when buyers arrive “pre-educated.”
The Hidden Opportunity
While 36% see sales as “less valuable,” this creates massive space for those who can articulate the new value proposition.
Few organizations are:
- Leveraging interactive demos to prove value beyond AI summaries
- Building strategies to correct AI misinformation
- Redefining sales-marketing relationships to match reality
- Equipping both teams to thrive in their redefined roles
This gap is your opportunity.
The research phase belongs to AI. The decision phase belongs to people with the right tools.
What’s Really in the Full Report
Our complete 14-page research study reveals:
✓ Detailed breakdown of how AI is reshaping buyer behavior across different deal sizes
✓ The exact tactics top-performing teams use to counter AI misinformation
✓ How 94% of companies restructured and what worked vs. what failed
✓ The complete leadership transition data showing the CMO-to-CRO pipeline
✓ Strategic frameworks for both CMOs and CROs to navigate this shift
✓ Benchmarks on time spent correcting vs. selling by team size
✓ The four strategic imperatives that separate category leaders from everyone else
Download the complete AI and The New Guard of B2B Sales report
Ready to adapt your demo strategy for AI-informed buyers? Walnut’s interactive demo platform helps sales and marketing teams cut through AI-generated noise with personalized experiences that prove value beyond what a chatbot can convey. See how it works.
